Enhancing distribution system resilience against extreme disasters considering sequential action of multi-type switches

Abstract

With the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme disasters, enhancing distribution system (DS) resilience has been an urgent need for smart grid. Among various resilience enhancement measures, network reconfiguration is the most commonly used one. Multiple switches are involved in distribution network reconfiguration, e.g., circuit breakers (CBs), fuses (FUs), remote-controlled switches (RCSs), and manual switches (MSs). According to the characteristics of various switches, it is vital to establish an analytical switch action model for generating feasible and effective DS resilience enhancement strategies. In this paper, an analytical model is developed to characterize the automatic tripping process of switches under multiple faults caused by extreme disasters. A novel DS resilience enhancement method is further proposed, which considers the sequential actions of multiple types of switches to enhance the prevention and rapid restoration capability of DSs against extreme disasters. Before the strike of a disaster, the topology of DS is reconfigured based on RCSs, MSs, and CBs to improve the survivability of loads. The automatic tripping process of CBs and FUs is simulated when faults occur. After the disaster, the DS is reconfigured based on RCSs and CBs after events to isolate faults and restore critical loads. The proposed method is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem, which can be efficiently solved using commercial solvers. Case studies conducted on the modified IEEE 123-bus test systems demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for DS resilience enhancement.